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1. What are the difference between competitive battling on a simulator and battling over wi-fi? So far I've only used PS and PO, but I'd like to make a team on the game itself.
2. Do they use tiers on wi-fi?
3. What are the rules?
4. Are there any unspoken rules, or behavior that is generally frowned down upon?
5. How do you know if a team is worth making? With the metagame changing all the time it sounds difficult to make a team that remains good enough.

1. What are the difference between competitive battling on a simulator and battling over wi-fi? So far I've only used PS and PO, but I'd like to make a team on the game itself.
2. Do they use tiers on wi-fi?
3. What are the rules?
4. Are there any unspoken rules, or behavior that is generally frowned down upon?
5. How do you know if a team is worth making? With the metagame changing all the time it sounds difficult to make a team that remains good enough.

1. Not really much. Pretty much the bw2 back drops and the unique animation for each attack
2. To my knowledge that's up to the rules you and your opponent agree to. Otherwise, there's the standard nintendo rules
3. smogon's banlist, po's isn't too different/. For nintendo iirc it's just no legendaries and no garchomp and no unreleased dw abilities. (I hope this answered your question...)
4. Being a punk and using teams built to hax because no one likes hax. Same for baton pass if you're unprepared for it, though that's not something that's frowned upon
5. Hard to tell, you pretty much have to keep up with what others say is good in the current meta. Metagame shifts for OU aren't common unless there's a ban or someone comes up with an innovative and dangerous set for a poke. The lower tiers, however, shift whenever a pokemon moves up in tier usage.

1. Not really much. Pretty much the bw2 back drops and the unique animation for each attack
2. To my knowledge that's up to the rules you and your opponent agree to. Otherwise, there's the standard nintendo rules
3. smogon's banlist, po's isn't too different/. For nintendo iirc it's just no legendaries and no garchomp and no unreleased dw abilities. (I hope this answered your question...)
4. Being a punk and using teams built to hax because no one likes hax. Same for baton pass if you're unprepared for it, though that's not something that's frowned upon
5. Hard to tell, you pretty much have to keep up with what others say is good in the current meta. Metagame shifts for OU aren't common unless there's a ban or someone comes up with an innovative and dangerous set for a poke. The lower tiers, however, shift whenever a pokemon moves up in tier usage.

2/3. What are / where can I find the standard Nintendo rules/banlists? Doesn't anyone use legendaries on wi-fi? And what are the most commonly used rules battlers usually agree to?

1. What are the difference between competitive battling on a simulator and battling over wi-fi? So far I've only used PS and PO, but I'd like to make a team on the game itself.
2. Do they use tiers on wi-fi?
3. What are the rules?
4. Are there any unspoken rules, or behavior that is generally frowned down upon?
5. How do you know if a team is worth making? With the metagame changing all the time it sounds difficult to make a team that remains good enough.

Just to add on to what was already said...

1. There's really no difference aside from the rules used, and the fact that on Simulators you don't have to use your own Pokemon, which is preferable for some since breeding for IVs is a pain.
2. No, tiers don't exist on random matchup or tournament wi-fi battles. If it's organized between two people though, they can choose to follow tiers if they want.
3. Wi-Fi rules are here for random matchups, and there's also flat battle rules for battles in the Union Room. dewhinifier already listed Smogon/PO's.
4. Hacked Pokemon are pretty much the universal rule, but there's also "common courtesy" such as not disconnecting to avoid a loss. Other than that, anything goes on wi-fi, and simulators typically have "clauses" of things that can be used on wi-fi, but are generally banned due to balance issues, or being too luck dependent (evasion, 1HKO moves, etc.).
5. The metagame may change but the metagame is not absolute. Keep in mind tiers are based on usage, but there are usually some Pokemon that, despite being UU-tiered, can still perform well in OU. At the end of the day though, some Pokemon are just better than others. You wouldn't use Pidgeot when Staraptor and Braviary are so much better, for instance (it's a simplistic answer but there are more like that).

SMod, One of the writers for the PotW, and someone you'll be hearing from often if you fail to read the rules

Not really a competitive mechanic question, but I tried accessing Smogon and PS, but both are giving me connection errors. Are they down or something?

Originally Posted by dewhinifier

Smogon got ddos attacked again and idk about ps which was working up to about today.

I've been wondering about what's been going on with Smogon, too. What's ddos?

If you need to see a page from Smogon, you can access cached copies of it. I'm using Google Chrome and after I get the "this page is not available" error, it provides a link to a cached copy, so I can see what was current as of a week ago.

Smogon's back on for me, so I'm just going to go ahead and ask something that wasn't exactly clear to me yet, something I can't really ask on Smogon (sorry for these continues questions):
Is it OK to use flawless OU legendaries on wi-fi? Do other people use legends? Flawless or not? Because I can RNG them easily, it just... feels... unfair... for some reason. On a simulator there's no problem, because everybody has access to everything. But I don't know about wi-fi... What's the standard?

Smogon's back on for me, so I'm just going to go ahead and ask something that wasn't exactly clear to me yet, something I can't really ask on Smogon (sorry for these continues questions):
Is it OK to use flawless OU legendaries on wi-fi? Do other people use legends? Flawless or not? Because I can RNG them easily, it just... feels... unfair... for some reason. On a simulator there's no problem, because everybody has access to everything. But I don't know about wi-fi... What's the standard?

If it came naturally out of your game, it's fair play. If your game generated it as opposed to an outside tool, it's obviously legit.

Ok, so a few quick question concerning OU Doubles. If I'm running a team based around Tailwind, should I be worried about having only one Pokemon to set up Tailwind, or should I opt to add Tailwind on a second Pokemon? (Latios is my potential candidate here.)

Leading into my next question, since I'm running a team based on Tailwind, should Latios (considering maximum speed investment) be running a Modest nature over Timid, or is that speed really necessary? (Latios is my only sweeper with reasonably high speed excluding Tailwind.)

Ok, so a few quick question concerning OU Doubles. If I'm running a team based around Tailwind, should I be worried about having only one Pokemon to set up Tailwind, or should I opt to add Tailwind on a second Pokemon? (Latios is my potential candidate here.)

Leading into my next question, since I'm running a team based on Tailwind, should Latios (considering maximum speed investment) be running a Modest nature over Timid, or is that speed really necessary? (Latios is my only sweeper with reasonably high speed excluding Tailwind.)

It's always good to have a back up and I'd recommend timid in case they are using fast pokes when the wind is down

I've used a Mamoswine for all of this past generation and Icicle Crash's flinch chance has actually been the difference between winning and losing more times than I can remember. You'd be surprised how much that little bonus helps. Against things I know I outspeed and that take the same amount from EQ and Crash but that I can't finish in the next hit, I'll sometimes go for Crash just to chance the flinch, and it works remarkably frequently.